The invention relates to an audible announcement of an indication of an identity of a sender of a communication.
In wireless and wireline telephony applications, a called party is usually notified that a calling party has called by some type of a notification alert. The notification alert may typically be an audio alert. For example, the called party in a telephony application may hear a ringer of a telephone. A visual alert may also be used, such as a blinking light.
A caller identification (xe2x80x9cIDxe2x80x9d) function adds another type of visual alert for the called party. With caller ID, the called party may see a telephone number, and perhaps a name, of a calling party. Electronic mail (xe2x80x9ce-mailxe2x80x9d) applications may provide audible and visual notification alerts as well. When a receiving party receives an e-mail, a notification alert, such as an audible beep and/or the appearance of an icon on a monitor coupled to a computer running the e-mail application, might be presented to the receiving party. The e-mail address of the sending party may be displayed on the monitor of the receiving party.
In either exemplary application, in order for the contacted party to associate a notification alert with an incoming communication from a contacting party, the contacted party must at least divert his or her visual attention from the application presently being worked on and redirect that visual attention to the caller ID display of the telephone or the computer monitor display of the e-mail application. This diversion of visual attention may cause the contacted party to lose continuity with whatever process he or she had been working on before receipt of the notification alert. If the visual notification alert presents only a telephone number, or only an e-mail address, then the contacted party may be required to mentally recollect the identity of the contacting party associated with that notification alert.
The invention relates to method and system for generating an audible announcement that may include an indication of an identity of a sender of an incoming communication. In one embodiment, the method may include receiving a communication having a communication identifier and then searching a database of a subscriber, or contacted party, to match the communication identifier to a data or audio file in the database that had been mapped to the communication identifier. If the communication identifier is located, then at least a portion of the data or audio file including data indicative of the identity of the author of the communication may be audibly announced to the contacted party. If the communication identifier is not located, then the method of the invention may include performance of various subscriber options including audibly announcing a previously stored announcement, generated in anticipation of a failure to locate the communication identifier.
In another embodiment, a communications identification announcement device that audibly announces an indication of an identity of a sender of a communication may include a memory including a database, a controller, and an output device. The controller may receive a communication having a communication identifier from a contacting party. The communication may be directed to a subscriber. The controller may locate the communication identifier in a subscriber database, and retrieve an audio file corresponding to the located communication identifier. The controller may then output the contents of the audio file to the output device, such as a speaker.